This invention pertains to machines for mounting electronic components into circuit boards or the like. More especially, it relates to machines adapted to mount components and sockets, separately, directly into circuit boards, and thereafter, with slight modification provided by this invention, to insert appropriate components into their previously inserted sockets.
Several U.S. patents have disclosed machines for inserting multi-lead components, for instance U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,550,238; 3,591,040; and 3,727,284. When electronic components have their leads clinched to interconnect to board circuitry, convenient removal of a component which may prove faulty is difficult and not convenient. Mounting of a suitable socket and soldering of such socket to a circuit board, on the other hand, enables the component thereafter inserted by its leads endwise into the socket to be manually removed for testing and or convenient replacement, the pre-inserted socket remaining connected to the board.
As disclosed in the pending application cited above, multi-lead or integrated circuit type components are often automatically sequenced for desired order of insertion. The present invention enlarges the utility of component inserting machines of the general type there disclosed by enabling them conveniently and simply to be adapted to initially sequence and mount sockets as well as components, and thereafter to insert usually by program, components into the previously installed sockets.